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Primal Magic Wiki
“I have stepped through the ruins of Netheril, those that the sands of the Anauroch could not claim, and felt echoes of terrifying power. I have climbed abandoned elven temples and felt residue of the High Magic that once sundered this land. But what happens now, on the Sword Coast, is uncharted. One day, Stonehearth will fall, it is the fate of all civilizations… but when it does, only those flying a spelljammer will find its ruins; glowing dust where this world once was…” : '-Laeral Silverhand, Chosen 'of' Mystra' and Open Lord ''of'' Waterdeep Welcome to the Primal Reality What if...? This campaign recasts the beloved Forgotten Realms into a new reality. For more than five decades, Faerûn has been evolving and growing, tweaked for each edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Like the game itself, the world of Abeir-Toril has been curated and sculpted to ensure a stable Late Medieval Period equivalent, with some areas edging into a magically-touched Renaissance. The depth and complexity – the colorful characters and cultural flavors that populate this planet – have made it a study of earth once removed. In that respect, it lends itself as a laboratory. Hold that thought as we follow the Wizards of the Coast through their latest iteration, where they smite the Forgotten Realms with the Time of Troubles, the Era of Upheaval and the Spellplague as they retcon the setting into the 5th edition (5e). What if these cataclysmic events converged to unlock prior limitations...? Magic itself would evolve... What if, in the wake of this string of apocalypses, the Scientific Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution rose to rock Toril? Given the shift in metaphysical cosmology, what if the Protestant Reformation shoved the shakeup in divine portfolios right over the edge? The "Present Age" is about to meet the Modern Age. This is the Primal Reality. Abandon the pretense of balance. This campaign builds on a base (5e) rules. There are modifications and additions in the assumptions governing skills, feats, economy, magic, and physics. The timeline maintains canon until around 1296 Dale Reckoning. In this source material, the artifice of magic is used by the writers to lock in current technology rather than accelerating it. The Primal Magic Campaign flips this static state on its head. The timeframe of this campaign is ; late ~1489 DR by calendar year. At 1296 DR, our assumptions manifest and the timeline begins to diverge. Most canon events still unfold – the world actors were still on stage and prior social momentum didn’t suddenly stop. The farther away from the nexus of change in Baldur’s Gate, the less the time stream is affected by the ripples of change. The closer the proximity and the more time passes, the more those suggestions begin to look different. House Stonehearth is the catalyst for change in the Forgotten Realms paradigm: they are in the right place, at the right time, to realize the true potential of : Primal Magic Campaign Concept of Operations The ConOps for this campaign is simple: evolution. The Forgotten Realms introduces powerful magic, wizards with a godlike intelligence, tinkers who can match that, and the means to create lasting, meaningful change… then bends over backward to re-balance all of this into a world that never actually changes. Such is the nature of dabbling with revenue content – after all, it took until 5e to assume PCs could read. More than dragons or the undead, flying carpets or flying cities, a static state with the dynamic factor of magic (much less science and technology) is the most unrealistic portion of the campaign setting. It puts the "forgotten" in Forgotten Realms. The Primal Magic ConOps leverages the amazing history, context, depth and texture compiled by the creators and contributors of this setting, and takes the gloves off. This takes place with just a few minor tweaks to rules that were otherwise designed to protect the mechanics of balancing roles and preserving moods. These changes are introduced as regional discoveries, and true to the history of the setting, there will be consequences, intended and otherwise. The Stonehearth Marquisate is at a crossroads 20,000 years in the making. Stonehearth is about to rock Faerûn, Toril and all of Realmspace. All the pieces have fallen into place, and research is leading development. Not merely the rise of a modern Netheril, player-characters are at the nexus of the rise of a modern era. The paradigms of this reality are about to take the Forgotten Realms into a new high-speed, high-magic world that they will have the chance to shape. This introduces a higher, more persistent technology that’s hinted at with Lantan – and follows through with the results that would naturally follow. There is also a new approach to magic that discards the pursuit of class balance in favor of the quest of adapting to change. There is a reason modern combat on earth doesn’t use swords and lances or bows and arrows anymore… and the consequences of that progress is slamming into Faerûn. Waypoints Where to from here? Here are a few critical Points of Interest as you map out a campaign... Welcome to Stonehearth gives an overview of the Sword Coast epicenter and how this reality diverges from published canon. There is enough detail for campaign runners and players alike to get a feel for the motivations, causes and results of recent history to tune in to the Primal Magic wavelength. There, they'll find specific campaign expectations, leading into character-building (or import) notes. The Hall of Records gives DM/GMs the history of this divergent reality. Stonehearth Ambitions lists short, medium and long-term hooks for planning a campaign. Zero Hour ties it all together with campaign-specific character creation and a few introductory scenarios that can serve as a springboard to a larger campaign. Latest activity Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Add one below! Category:Browse